Website breadcrumbs are a small but mighty detail in the architecture of a high-performing website. Simple in appearance yet strategic in function, they serve as navigational aids that help users understand where they are within a site’s hierarchy, and just as importantly, how to get back. Often overlooked in favour of more eye-catching design elements, breadcrumbs quietly support everything from usability to SEO performance and conversion.
Our article will walk you through what website breadcrumbs actually are, how they work, and the different types you might come across. We’ll also share how we use them at Yellowball to make websites easier to navigate, more visible in search results, and more effective at keeping users engaged. Whether you’re managing a growing eCommerce site, a lead generation platform or a complex content hub, a clear breadcrumb navigation strategy should be part of your website design toolkit.
What Are Website Breadcrumbs?
The term “breadcrumbs” is borrowed from the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale, where a trail of breadcrumbs was used to find the way back home. Breadcrumbs give visitors a clear sense of where they are on your site and how they got there.
You’ll usually see them near the top of a page, laid out in a single line, with each level separated by a symbol (commonly “>” or “/”), like this:
Home > Services > Web Design > WordPress
Every part of this breadcrumb trail is clickable and links to a broader section of the website, allowing users to jump backwards through the site’s structure. It’s a quick way to navigate without relying on the main menu or search.
Why Breadcrumbs Matter on All Website Projects
Breadcrumbs are helpful for visitors and useful for search engines. On large or complex websites, they make it easier to move around, find related content, and keep exploring. Behind the scenes, they also support a stronger internal linking structure, improving on-site SEO, which is key to how search engines understand and rank your site.
For users, breadcrumbs offer:
- Clarity – A clear view of where they are within the site structure
- Ease of use – Quick access to broader category or landing pages without relying on the back button
- Less effort – A simpler way to browse, especially on mobile, where menus can be harder to use
For businesses, this can help to:
- Lower bounce rates – Visitors will be more likely to keep exploring rather than leave your website
- More engagement – With easier navigation, people visit more pages and spend more time on site
- Smoother conversion paths – Particularly useful on ecommerce or service-based websites
For search engines, breadcrumbs help by:
- Reinforcing site structure – Showing how content is grouped and related
- Improving internal linking – Helping bots crawl your site more efficiently
- Supporting rich results – When marked up correctly, breadcrumbs can appear directly in search snippets
Done well, they support both UX and SEO without taking up much space or attention.
What are the Most Common Types of Breadcrumb Navigation?
Website breadcrumbs can work in a few different ways, depending on how your website is designed and built, and how people move through it. Some follow your site structure, others reflect search filters or browsing history. Here’s a quick look at the main types you’ll come across.
1. Hierarchy-Based (Also called Location-Based)
This is the most familiar and widely used type of breadcrumb. It follows the actual structure of your website—from the top-level page down to where the user is now. Think of it like a simple map of where the current page sits in the site’s overall layout.
Example: Home > Blog > Marketing > How to Build a Content Strategy
This format is especially helpful for larger websites with layered content, such as blogs with multiple categories, ecommerce stores with product hierarchies, or service-led businesses with several offerings. It’s also great for SEO, as it reinforces the relationship between parent and child pages.
2. Attribute-Based
This type is common on ecommerce sites where users filter products by category, size, colour, and other attributes. It doesn’t follow the page hierarchy but instead reflects the specific options a user has selected.
Example: Home > Clothing > Men > Jackets > Size M > Black
It’s helpful for shoppers who want to tweak or reset their choices without having to start from the top. When done well, it makes product browsing much smoother and more intuitive.
3. Path-Based
This version shows the route a user has taken to reach the current page, regardless of the site’s structure.
Example: Home > Sale > T-Shirts > Product Page
It’s a snapshot of their browsing session, but it can get messy. If someone lands on a page from a Google search or external link, the breadcrumb might not make sense or be repeatable. That’s why it’s used far less often today and you’re more likely to come across them in a website redesign rather than a fresh concept.
For most projects at Yellowball, hierarchy-based breadcrumbs tend to offer the right balance of usability and SEO value. They give users a clear sense of structure while supporting internal linking and helping search engines understand how your content is organised. They’re especially effective when we’re designing websites around service tiers, blog libraries, or product catalogues where clarity and conversion matter.
Where are the Best Places to Use Breadcrumbs in a Website Design?
Breadcrumbs navigation is most effective on websites with multiple levels of content. If your site has nested categories, deep internal pages, or structured content groupings, it’s a strong candidate.
Examples include:
- eCommerce stores with many categories and subcategories
- B2B websites offering several services across multiple industries
- Content hubs or blogs with filters, tags, or category groupings
- Enterprise-level sites with documentation, knowledge bases, or multi-region content
However, they’re usually unnecessary on single-page websites or flat-structured sites with very few levels.
Breadcrumbs and User Experience (UX)
From a web design UX perspective, breadcrumbs reduce user effort and friction. Instead of relying on the back button or re-opening the main menu, users can jump backwards with one click. This matters more on mobile, where navigation menus are often hidden behind icons and scrolling is less intuitive.
Good breadcrumb design is:
- Unobtrusive but visible
- Consistent in placement in website layouts (usually just below the header or hero section)
- Accurately reflects site structure
- Avoids cluttering with unnecessary detail
At Yellowball, we treat breadcrumbs as a functional tool—not a decorative element. We build them into wireframes early in the design process, ensuring they support the rest of the navigation and help with content scannability, especially on deeper pages where context is key.
How Do Website Breadcrumbs Help SEO?
Search engines look at how your content is organised as well as what your content is. Breadcrumbs help them understand how your pages connect and which ones belong together, making them essential for a strong SEO strategy. You’ll sometimes see them in search results too, where they replace the full URL with a clearer path, making your listing easier to scan and more appealing to click.
Let’s say someone searches for one of your services and your page appears in Google.
Instead of showing the full URL like this:
www.yellowball.co.uk/services/seo/technical-seo
Google might display it like this:
Yellowball > Services > SEO > Technical SEO
It’s cleaner, easier to scan, and gives people a better idea of what to expect before they even click. That’s the breadcrumb trail at work in search results.
When implemented properly during the web design process, breadcrumbs can give your SEO efforts an extra lift:
- Better crawlability – Search engines can move through your site more easily, helping them index pages faster and more thoroughly.
- Stronger internal linking – Each breadcrumb link reinforces your site structure, distributing link authority across more pages.
- Enhanced visibility in search – With the right schema markup, Google may display breadcrumb paths in your search snippets, which can make your listings more appealing.
To get those benefits, a few technical details matter. You’ll want to:
- Use clear, consistent link text
- Make sure each breadcrumb link points to the correct, canonical version of the page
- Include structured data using the BreadcrumbList schema
At Yellowball, these steps are integrated into our SEO strategy and web development process. Our technical team works closely with our strategists to make sure breadcrumbs support both UX and long-term organic growth well before a website launches.
How We Build Breadcrumbs into Website Design Projects
Adding breadcrumbs to a site isn’t something you want to tack on as an afterthought. To work properly for both users and search engines they need to be planned, designed and implemented with care and according to web design best practices. At Yellowball, we treat them as part of the broader site architecture, and build them in from the ground up. Here’s how we do it.
1. Plan the Site Structure First
We always begin with a clear sitemap. Breadcrumbs follow the structure of your site, so if that structure isn’t logical or consistent, your breadcrumbs won’t be either. We look at how your content breaks down (what the main pages are, which sections fall under which) and make sure there’s a clean hierarchy for users and search engines to follow.
2. Design the Look and Feel
Breadcrumbs shouldn’t stand out but they also shouldn’t disappear. Using your brand’s visual guidelines, we design a breadcrumb trail that’s subtle, legible, and easy to follow. We think about things like font size, spacing, and dividers (like arrows or slashes) so that it feels intuitive and uncluttered across all screen sizes.
3. Use Clear, Friendly Labels
Each step in the breadcrumb trail should use everyday language that people actually understand. No acronyms, jargon or admin-speak. If the page is about web design services, that’s exactly what the breadcrumb should say. We keep it short, consistent and recognisable at a glance.
4. Build for All Devices and Users
Accessibility is a must. We use semantic HTML and ARIA labels so screen readers can interpret breadcrumbs correctly. Then we test on mobile, desktop and tablet to make sure the breadcrumb doesn’t get cut off or wrap awkwardly, especially on pages with long names or deep nesting.
5. Add the Right Schema Markup
To give your site the best chance of getting those neat breadcrumb displays in Google’s search results, we include the correct structured data (usually JSON-LD or microdata). This tells search engines exactly how each page fits into your site’s hierarchy.
6. Check the SEO Impact
Once live, we double-check that everything’s working. That means making sure links point to the right versions of each page, that anchor text is clean, and that your breadcrumb trail supports internal linking goals. Over time, we also track how breadcrumbs influence things like bounce rates, page views and organic click-throughs.
Don’t Make These Common Website Breadcrumb Mistakes
Like most things in web design, breadcrumbs only work well if they’re done properly. They might be a small detail, but if they’re not thought through, they can cause more confusion rather than actually helping your website function better and rank well. Here are some of the most common breadcrumb mistakes we come across:
- Structure that doesn’t match reality
If the breadcrumb trail doesn’t follow the actual hierarchy of your site, users won’t know where they are or how to get back. It also sends mixed signals to search engines about how your content is organised.
- Labels that are too complex
Breadcrumbs aren’t the place to cram in keywords or long, clunky titles. They should be short, clear, and written in plain language that anyone can understand at a glance.
- Not enough depth
A breadcrumb path that just says Home > Page doesn’t really help anyone. It should reflect the journey through your content—especially on sites with multiple layers or categories.
- No structured data
Leaving out schema markup means you’re missing the chance for breadcrumbs to appear in search results. It’s a small technical step that can make a big difference.
- Poor mobile experience
Breadcrumbs that get cut off, wrap awkwardly, or disappear entirely on mobile aren’t doing their job. They should be just as accessible and useful on smaller screens.
At Yellowball, we include breadcrumb checks in our standard QA and SEO reviews. That means checking structure, usability, and technical setup. Where possible, we also track how users interact with breadcrumbs using heatmaps or click data so we know they’re actually helping our clients.
How Yellowball Uses Breadcrumbs to Support Conversion
Everything we build is tailored to support the end goal: conversions. That means thinking beyond visuals and focusing on how users move through a website. Breadcrumbs are part of a broader strategy to reduce drop-off, support content discoverability and improve SEO rankings.
Whether we’re designing a new site or optimising an existing one, our process includes:
- Collaborative IA planning with designers, developers and SEOs
- Strategic wireframes that position breadcrumbs for optimal flow
- Conversion-focused copywriting that pairs breadcrumb logic with strong CTAs
- SEO validation to ensure all breadcrumb links contribute to visibility
We don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach. For clients with unique requirements, like multi-region targeting, multilingual content or extensive blog archives, we create custom breadcrumb strategies that support both navigation and organic reach.
Speak to Web Design Specialists Today
Breadcrumbs may seem like a small addition to a website, but they do a lot of heavy lifting. They make navigation easier, content more discoverable, and sites more attractive to search engines. Most importantly, they support real users in real scenarios, helping them stay engaged, find what they need, and take the next step.
If you’re planning a new website or revisiting your current UX and SEO setup, it’s worth taking the time to review how breadcrumbs fit into the picture. At Yellowball, we build them into the foundation of every site, not just because it’s good practice, but because it delivers measurable value for our clients.
Looking for a team that understands UX, SEO and style? Contact us today and get the ball rolling with our specialist web design agency in London!
